The creator of Dolly the sheep has called for farmers to take
up cloning as a way of producing cheap food.

Professor Keith Campbell believes the country's farms should be populated by
superstrong, super-sized offspring of clones.

The U.S. expects to be eating clone-farmed burgers, pork and bacon within two
years, and supporters of the method say Europe must follow suit.

The Daily Mail revealed earlier this year how the daughter of a U.S. clone
cow had been born on a British farm for the first time, making Frankenstein
Farming a reality.

The intention is that the cow - Dundee Paradise - will be used to help breed
Britain's future milking cow herds.

Professor Campbell said yesterday that this should be the first step to a far
wider use of cloned animals to produce food from cattle, pigs, chicken and sheep.

Campaigners insist that meat and milk from cloned offspring is identical to
the food in supermarkets and should not be labelled.

However, any attempt to deny families the right to decide whether they want
to eat food produced in this way would be highly controversial.

One of the biggest concerns is the high number of clone-animal pregnancies
that lead to abnormalities, miscarriages and stillbirths.

Even in the most successful cloning systems, twice as many piglets are born
dead - around

20per cent - as with existing breeding. The clones could be created from cells
taken from the ears of prized animals or even bodies going through a slaughterhouse.

Clone-offspring cows would be bigger and able to produce more milk than those
from current breeding techniques.

Pigs might also be much bigger, leaner or faster growing, so making them easier
and cheaper to produce.

Professor Campbell, director of animal bioscience at Nottingham University,
said cloning is a useful extension of existing selective breeding, which includes
artificial insemination and embryo transfer.

"It is just another technique that we can add to accelerate genetic improvements
to farm animal species," he added. "Cloning allows us to multiply
elite animals.

"We have achieved the ability to clone a whole variety of animals and
animal species. In farm animals, we have got cattle, sheep, goats, pigs and
horses.

"In my opinion the ability to integrate cloning into the food production
line should be allowed to farmers nowadays."

He said there is 'no conceivable risk' in eating food produced from the off-spring
of clones, suggesting the only barrier to the technology is public perception.

The U.S. Food & Drug Administration is expected to give approval for the
technology, without a requirement for labelling, later this year.